Sixth-formers 'should be treated like undergraduates'

Sixth-formers should be treated more like university students, with study leave to work on computers at home and tutorials with their teachers at school, says the Government's former chief examinations adviser.

Professor David Hargreaves, former head of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, the Government's exams watchdog, will urge the move as one of a series of steps to improve standards in a speech that will accuse Tony Blair of failing to be bold enough in his school reforms. He will say that they should be urgently considered to prevent stagnation in the campaign to raise achievement.

His message to an international conference on school improvement in Sydney next Sunday will be: "The Prime Minister [in his address to the Labour Party conference] said we are at our best when we are at our boldest and we haven't been bold."

Professor Hargreaves, who was senior adviser to Estelle Morris on the Government's reforms for 14 to 19 education until her resignation as Education Secretary in October, will highlight two areas where he believes ministers should be adopting a far more innovative approach.

The first is over the introduction of new technology in schools, where he says the Government has failed to develop bold enough strategies over how it should be used.

Speaking to The Independent yesterday, he said: "We're still not using ICT [information and communications technology] to transform post-16 education. We should be teaching sixth-formers in smaller groups. Teachers in the sixth form like in the main to behave more like dons than classroom teachers. Why don't they send students home or to study centres – thus dramatically reducing class sizes and bring them in for tutorials?

"It would give the kids much more of the special skills they would need for independent learning by the time they get to university and would probably improve their learning."

He will also cite research by Professor Paul Black, who drew up the blueprint for national curriculum testing, and Professor Dylan Wiliam – both of King's College London, which claims students learn better if teachers do not give them marks and grades for their work.

Their study of 24 teachers in six English schools over 18 months showed their learning improved more with "formative assessment" – where teachers made individual comments on their classroom work.

"I am pushing this as a possibility to be considered," he said. "We are becoming more and more obsessed by grades and marks – kids and parents understand them. Yet this research shows it is stopping them from learning."

Professor Hargreaves will also argue that the Government should allow more creativity and innovation in schools, taking inspiration from the world of business.

He said that progress on improving standards had stalled after an initial leap through policies such as the compulsory literacy hour and the daily maths lesson in primary schools.

* The Independent Schools Council says today that it opposes government plans to change the law on charitable status. The Government wants independent schools to prove they benefit the community if they want to retain charitable status. But the council says a statutory definition of "public benefit" will prove impossible.